I’m thrilled to announce a new book signing event for the Fly Fishing Guide to the Farmington River at the Bear’s Den in Taunton, MA, Thursday, December 3, from 4:30-6:00pm. The shop will have books available for sale, and if you’ve already purchased a copy, bring it along and I’ll be happy to sign it. Bring your questions if you have them, and I’ll try to help you figure things out. Helpful hint: the book would make an outstanding Christmas gift for the fly angler in your life!
Bob Dylan sang, “I’ve never engaged in this kind of thing before,” and that’s kind of how I feel about becoming a first-time book author. Among the new experiences that have fallen out of writing the Fly Fishing Guide to the Farmington River, I can now count the bizzaro inquisitive fake-author spam-bot email.
It goes like this: I get an email from someone claiming to be a best-selling author, or the head of a book review group. If you look that person up, yeah, they’re real, and they are what the email says they are. But that’s where the “real” ends. Because the emails are clearly not being written by a human.
Warning signs abound, even at a casual glance. The most recent email came from an address belonging to one Sean Barrs, while the text claimed its writer was a Paul Fulcher. Gotta do better with cuts and paste, fellas. The email texts read like they were AI-generated; they’re full of flowery praise for my writing, and glowing synopses of my book, the latter sounding suspiciously like a bot scanned the text from the table of contents and the back cover to write it. To wit: “What also intrigued me was the range of people who endorsed the book. George Daniel, Tim Cammisa, and Pat Dorsey are not interchangeable voices in fly fishing—they come at the sport from guiding, from fly tying, and from very different waters—and each of them found something specific to praise: local knowledge, proven patterns and detailed access points, and the full span of matching the hatch, tactics, seasonal strategy, etiquette, conservation, and reading the river.” Yada, yada, yada, ditto, ditto, ditto, etc., etc., etc.
Now comes the weird part (yeah, it gets weirder). The sender asks all manner of intrusive, intimate questions about my writing process. Example: “I’m also curious about how you decided what belonged in the book. There is something quite revealing about placing seasonal strategies and fly selection alongside etiquette, conservation, and reading the river. Was that breadth a conscious attempt to write the guide you wished you’d had when you first started fishing the Farmington, or did it emerge more naturally from the questions other anglers have asked you over the years?” What is this crap? A fookin’ college admissions essay? You’re a total stranger and you want me to spill my guts to you? Yeah, I’ll get on that right away.
This last part might be the best. I respond to the sender, thanking them for their interest, then tell them that I don’t have the time to write long-form answers. But, if they are so curious, send me your phone number and I’ll call you to discuss. Or, I’ll send you mine. The response is always a variation on the the theme, “I can’t/I prefer to use email/as a writer I prefer written responses. There’s scientific word for that, I think. It’s called bullshit.
Which all leads to the burning questions of the day. Who’s behind this? What are they after? What do they want with the information? Is this some kind of dark Chinese author espionage? Is it life in the take-no-prisoners, cut-throat world of fly fishing publications? Or do I simply attract internet weirdos?
I don’t know. But in the meantime, I’ll just continue to send them down Highway 61.
Happy Monday! I wish I had some fishing stories to tell you — specifically, fishing stories about a recent outing — but lately, it’s been no fishing for me. I was supposed to guide on the Farmington today, but my client had to cancel. Tempting though it would have been to be on the water, I decided to, as David Bowie said, “stay home…and get things done.” So, here we are. Also: we need rain. If you have any influence of the weather, please exercise those muscles.
Tomorrow night, Tuesday, October 27, I’m talking about the “Fly Fishing Guide to the Farmington River” to the Crossroads Anglers at the South Foxboro Community Center, 6:30pm. Everyone is welcome. I’ll have a box o’ books in case you don’t have one, and if you do — smart person! — I’ll have a Sharpie on hand for signing. Here’s a link to the Crossroads Anglers website. Hope to see you there!
Coming up fast: The International Fly Tying Symposium, November 21 & 22. Previously held in Somerset, NJ, the show has shifted to Lancaster, PA. While that makes it a little G.U. for New Englanders, I’m hoping some of you will make it down. And if you’re reading this in any of the mid-Atlantic states, you’re now within reasonable driving distance from the single best fly tying show in the world. In addition to some outstanding tyers, there will be vendors galore, like Regal Vise, for whom I ‘m a Staff Pro, and J.Stockard, for whom I’m a Pro Tyer. Every year, I find some hard-to-locate tool or tying material at the Symposium. But the best part is the talent. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned just by walking around and talking to my fellow fly tyers, or listening in of one of their talks. There are classes (you must pre-register), Featured Tyers (come see me demoing Wet Flies & Soft Hackles for Northeast Streams on Sunday, November 22 at 10:30am, and Seminars (I’ll be presenting Tying & Fishing Wet Flies, Saturday, November 21 at 1:45pm). While you have to pre-register for classes, the featured tiers and seminars are all included in your admission ticket. If you’re there, please come say hello.
And now, I’m heading off to shoot an Instagram video.
Many thanks to the FRAA for hosting me last night. I’m beyond giddy with all the positive feedback I’m getting about the book — it’s truly gratifying to hear that people are digging not only the content, but also the writing. There will be no dull textbooks from this author! We had a strong turnout last night at Brewery Legitimus, and I helped myself to several slices of pizza, washed down with a delicious Dr. Strangehaze NEIPA before hitting the floor to speak. The book tour continues next week, October 27 at the Crossroads Anglers in Foxboro, MA.
We’ve reached peak foliage time on the Farmington, and that means two things. First, the leaves will soon be brown and tumbling down, which can muck up a fly presentation. You may want to avoid breezy days, which can produce whirlwinds of vegetal matter in the air and then on and in the water. Second, the browns are now firmly in pre-spawn, if not actual spawn mode. Be on the lookout for redds, the cleared out gravel beds where browns like to deposit their eggs. Think smaller gravel, and shallower, moving water. Redds are usually easy to spot; if you see a light oval patch surrounded by dark substrate, that could be a redd. The presence of trout holding on or nearby, doing some kind of canoodling dance, is another indicator of spawning activity.
Note the locations of these redds for future reference. You don’t want to be walking over an egg bed in January. Crushing the next year class of wild fish is disastrous and avoidable. It goes without saying that you shouldn’t be targeting spawning fish. That’s unsporting and plain bad form. Sometimes non-spawning fish will set up a few dozen feet below a redd to pick off stray eggs. Targeting those fish with egg patterns can be productive, but please take care to watch where you plant your feet — and please leave those active spawners alone.
I guided Owen on Tuesday. Owen is pretty much a beginner, but very enthusiastic — just the kind of student I like to teach. We spent our afternoon on the water from the Riverton bridge to several hundred yards above. It was a chilly, overcast day, and we started off with some indicator nymphing. That was surprisingly a blank — and then a trout slashed at the indicator. We tied on a mini streamer, but no love. A bait angler below us got into two fish, but we decided to head upriver.
At the next mark, Owen locked into a fish on the nymph rig, but the trout sadly became unbuttoned. By this time, there was a decent amount of trout-eating-emergers activity. It was caddis action, and I was surprised by the last on tiny BWOs. We moved over to wet fly, and were rewarded with some bumps, and then an eat. It might have been the ugliest stocked rainbow I’ve ever seen in this river — ragged tail and fins, fins missing, scales gone AWOL — but it was exciting to see Owen connect with his first Farmington River fish. We headed upstream again and got one more bump, but that was it. Great, job, Owen!
Then last night, I spoke to the fine people of the Croton Watershed TU Chapter. Croton TU knows that a fed presenter is a happy presenter, so they are hereby awarded the Legion of the Cheeseburger with IPA (Singlecut) Clusters, and all the privileges associated with that honor. According to the chapter president, the crowd was excellent, and from my point of view, very enthusiastic and welcoming. We had a good post-talk Q&A session, and I want to thank the people who bought a copy of the book. I’m already looking forward to my return.
Next up: Wednesday, October 21, Farmington River Anglers Association, 7pm, Brewery Legitmus, New Hartford, CT. This meeting is open to the public. And it’s at a brewery! If that’s not a doubleheader sweep, I don’t know what is. More info is here.
After a couple of weeks’ respite, I’m back on the speaking trail this Thursday night. It’s the first of three speaking gigs this month, all dedicated to the best book on the Farmington River, my Fly Fishing Guide to the Farmington River (he said most humbly). Of course, books will be available for purchase and signing, and if you’ve already bought a copy, bring it along and I’ll sign it with a smile. Here are the details:
Thursday, October 15, Croton Watershed TU, 7pm, Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Pleasantville, NY. This meeting is open to the public. More info can be found here.
Wednesday, October 21, Farmington River Anglers Association, 7pm, Brewery Legitmus, New Hartford, CT. This meeting is open to the public. And it’s at a brewery! If that’s not a doubleheader sweep, I don’t know what is. More info is here.
Tuesday, October 27, Crossroads Angers, South Foxboro Community Center, Foxboro, MA. According to their website, “Steve is a real character and this promises to be an entertaining affair.” Who am I to argue? Guests — unless you’re a member, that’s you — are always welcome. More info, right here.
I guided Anthony last Friday and we had the blessing of a glorious Indian summer day. Sunshine, good flows, warm air, and…leaves. Organic matter in the water was only an occasional nuisance, but I expect that it will get exponentially worse in the next couple weeks, especially if we have a breezy day. (This is why I typically end my traditional wet fly fishing around mid-October.)
But back to our day. We swung the hell out of a team of three wet flies, but the locals just weren’t having it. We hit two marks below the PTMA (many thanks to the angler who shared water with us!), then headed below Collinsville. Same story in two other marks. Up to this point, we’d had a few bumps, very likely from small fish, and no real eats. There were a few tiny BWOs in the air, some caddis, and then a smattering of Isos, but this was a day where the fishing was great and the catching stunk. Anthony deserved far better, as he was making multiple dozens of fish-worthy casts, mends, and presentations.
Last week I snuck out for a few hours on a local small stream. The water was medium-low, crystal clear, and the fact that the sun was out meant the locals were on high alert. Holy sandbars! The bottom structure of this stream had shifted quite a bit over the summer. In some sections, it felt like I was in brand new water. I fished a bushy dry (AFR Humpulator) and a BHPT dropper, and pricked four on the dry and two on the nymph. At the end, I switched to the Jiggy Squirmy Thingy and had a few small guys bull-rush the fly, but no char were brought to hand.
On Thursday, I guided Tim for a subsurface lesson. Like the small stream, the Farmington was low and clear, but plenty cold. We fished the mid and lower river sections. Mid-river was nymphing, and I was astonished that we didn’t even get a touch. What?!? We headed downstream to try our hand at wet flies, and we managed to stick three fish, although all of them became unbuttoned. Like many new to wet fly fishing, Tim needed to wait on the hookset after the hit. You feel the hit, and you want to set, but if you do, you’ll pull the hook right out of the fish’s mouth. You feel the strike, pause, asking, “Are you still there?” And if you do, the fish will always answer yes, having hooked himself neatly in the corner of his mouth. We will absolutely get them next time, Tim. A pleasure fishing with you, sir. Oh — we had hatches. Caddisflies and tiny BWOs and especially Isonychia. I love Isos.
Finally, all this rain. It really depends on where you live — we got pounded in Durham on Saturday, while the rain barely made a dent in the Farmington flows. Today, the storm is finally manifesting — the Unionville gauge has jumped from 230cfs to 540 — but I expect the river will clear up quickly.
I now, I know, I’ve got a little broken-record syndrome with these posts, but I don’t want you to miss out. (It seems like every week, I get an email that says something like, “I wish I knew you were going to be there…”) So let’s get to it.
Tuesday night. 9/15, I’m at Thames Valley TU. Doors open at 6pm. I go on around 7:15pm. All are welcome. The subject will be the Fly Fishing Guide to the Farmington River, and I will have books for purchase and signing. Of course, you want to know where it is: the North Franklin Fire Dept., 5 Tyler Drive, North Franklin CT. This is an all-new Farmington River presentation, so unless you were at the SEMass TU meeting last week, you haven’t seen it!
Wednesday night is the much anticipated Ask About Fly Fishing Podcast. It goes live at 9pm ET. Here’s their promo description: “On our upcoming broadcast “Fly Fishing the Farmington River: Trout, Hatches & Tactics” with Steve Culton we will give away a one-year membership to Fly Fishers International, a one-year membership to Trout Unlimited, and a copy of his latest book Fly Fishing Guide to the Farmington River (you have to be listening to the live show to win this). To qualify for the drawings, you need to register. Use this link to visit our registration page, complete the form, then send us your information, and you’ll be included in the drawing.” I hope you get a chance to listen in, and please ask lots of questions!
Last but not least, I’m road tripping to Philadelphia to speak to the Main Line Fly Tyers on Thursday night, 9/17. It will be held at the Greater Plymouth Community Center in Plymouth Meeting, PA. Doors open at 6:30pm. As with the TVTU gig, the subject will be the Fly Fishing Guide to the Farmington River, and I will have books for purchase and signing.
And maybe…just maybe…I’ll get out to do some fishing at some point. Stripers beckon. Wild brook trout beckon. The Farmington River beckons…
Happy day-after-Labor Day. I actually fished this weekend, on the Cape no less, and was rewarded with two hours of blissful solitude under the stars, an outstanding cigar (Olmec Grande Maduro), and…not a touch. Can you believe that it’s September 8th and I still haven’t caught a striper this year? Only 7 outings, but hey, come on now. Not to worry. It’s going to happen soon.
Also happening soon is my speaking engagement with SE Mass TU — tonight, in fact — in Middleborough, MA. It’s the first of many gigs this fall that center around the book, Fly Fishing Guide to the Farmington River. The meeting starts at 7pm at the Mitchell Memorial Club, and walk-ins are welcome. I’ll have books for sale and signing. Next week, Sept. 15, 7pm, I’m at Thames Valley TU in CT. Thursday, Sept. 17, I visit the Main Line Fly Tyers in Philadelphia. Ditto ditto books for sale and signing.
If you can’t make any of those dates, you can catch me from the comfort of your home on Wednesday, Sept 16. I’m honored to be the guest of the Ask About Fly Fishing Podcast, which will be broadcast live at 9pm ET. If you can’t make it, you can still listen to it at a later date. You can ask questions, and I’ll answer them live on the air — or is it ether? They also do a free drawing — I’m not sure what the prize is — which you need to register for. It’s going to be fun, and I’m really looking forward to it. See you around!
